Top 7 Facts About Tigers

These are the tiger’s closest family members

The closest family members of the tiger are their Panthera counterparts the lion, jaguar, leopard, and snow leopard. Studies have shown that the tiger and snow leopard actually diverged from the Panthera lineage together about 2.88 million years ago. This means that the snow leopard is actually the closest relative to the tiger. The geographic origin of the tiger is believed to be Central Asia, and it spread throughout Southeast Asia during the Miocene Period, about 23.03 to 5.333 million years ago.

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